Not only at Web international - Stories about foreign teachers unwilling to attend school parties are common place. There has not been a single year pass by WEB in Suzhou when they didn't have disgruntled teachers who didn't want to attend the stupid company functions that they agreed to attend when signing a contract with the company in the first place. You'd think Web would learn how to communicate teacher's responsibility to attend Christmas functions and other extra curricular activities (by simply planning them a little better, making foreign teachers part of the planning activities, and one month and 2 month advanced reminders in the form of MEMO's would be nice too). But last minute assumptions, and unreasonable requests from the bureaucratic chain of doers (beneath the boss) who've no interest in the world to actually learn about western culture much less communicate using English is completely unacceptable and your anger is 100 percent justifiable.

A friend of mine had a heart attack the other day. He called his school (similar to WEB) and not far from it, and told them he needed help. It's an Emergency. He said: "I'm having a heart attack. I need you to call an ambulance to come to my house and take me to hospital" - Of course his voice was as revealing as his words. And do you know what they said to my friend? - "Do you have classes today?"

Now that you've had this experience, you know what to expect next year now don't you?

Because it's not going to change my friend.

10 years and counting in China. I want to go back to Mars.